Free In My Wildest Fantasies by Julianne MacLean Page B

have looked more relaxed if he were basking in the sun.
    "So tell me," he said, "what did you and my brother speak about?"
    "He asked if I was betrothed."
    "Did he, indeed? And what was your reply?"
    "That I am not, of course." She paused, watching his reaction, then continued. "He also asked if I was in love."
    Lord Hawthorne shook his head with disapproval. "Tsk, tsk, Vincent. Such bold questions. And what was your reply to that?"
    "No again. But the night is still young."
    She wasn't quite sure where that clever but risky response had come from. She could only credit it to her provocative reading of late.
    His smiling eyes glanced down at her body. "Did you enjoy dancing with him?"
    "He is an excellent dancer."
    "That's not what I asked."
    She recognized a fire in his eyes--was it jealousy?--and decided not to answer the question. She simply took another sip of champagne and strolled to the other side of the table.
    "Is that why you were waiting for me after I danced with him?" she asked. "And why you escorted me here to the dessert table? To protect me from your brother, the alleged scoundrel?"
    "Yes."
    Her view of him was briefly obstructed by the tower of lemon cakes. She tilted her head to the side. "It seems you are always coming to my rescue, Lord Hawthorne. First a runaway coach, now a scoundrel of a brother. What next, I ask you?"
    The corner of his mouth curled up in a grin, and when he spoke, the whispery quality of his voice tingled across her body, as if he had stroked her with a feather. "I suspect there will have to be something, Lady Rebecca. Any chance there might be a monster under your bed tonight that I can save you from?"
    The implications of that question shocked her to her core, and she felt quite decidedly out of her depth. "Are you sure it is your brother who is the scoundrel?" she asked. "Perhaps I should be warned about the masked highwayman before me, who wants to peek under my bed."
    He watched her turn and stroll to the end of the table. She reached for another grape, but did not eat it right away.
    "What a night," she said. "I've danced with two scoundrels, and now I've been scandalized by a shocking comment about a monster under my bed. Lord Hawthorne, you are a very, very bad man."
    And he excited her to the depths of her soul.
    She popped the grape into her mouth, and something in his eyes changed. His searing gaze swept down her body again.
    "You must come and stay in the palace with the other out-of-town guests," he said. "They are all staying until Friday."
    The very air around them seemed to snap with electricity, and she began to believe that whatever she had said or done during these crucial moments around the table had worked. "But we have already unpacked at the inn," she explained.
    "Tomorrow, then. My mother will speak to your aunt tonight before you leave."
    Rebecca could not smother the great fire of triumph now burning inside her. "You have everything worked out, I see."
    Her aunt appeared at her side, and Hawthorne turned his eyes to her. "You have returned, Lady Saxby. Rest assured, your charge was in good hands. I rescued her from the chocolate kisses. She did not have a single one."
    "Gracious, my lord," Aunt Grace said, "I do owe you my deepest gratitude, because we all know that one kiss is never enough, and they are, oh, so dangerously sweet. A lady must watch herself."
    He smiled with amusement at Aunt Grace, then bowed to both of them. "Good evening, ladies."
    Her aunt watched him leave. "My, what an incredible man, Rebecca. No wonder you never forgot him."
    "And you are terrible, Aunt Grace! What you said about the chocolate kisses! I could brain you!"
    Her aunt ignored her admonishment. "I suspect he never really forgot you either, dear, and I predict you will be seeing him again."
    Rebecca leaned close. "Sooner rather than later, it appears, because he has invited us to stay at the palace for the week."
    Grace shot her a quick look. "You don't say. In that case, I